''Breaking the Ice'' is an

indie role-playing game An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the gam ...

Emily Care Boss Emily Care Boss is an indie roleplaying game designer, theorist and publisher. She was a foundational member of The Forge, an early leader in the indie role-playing game movement and is considered the creator of the American Freeform genre of r ...

. It's a game for two players where the

player characters A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

go on three

dates Date or dates may refer to: *Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'') Social activity *Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner **Group dating * Play date, a ...

together to see if they will become a couple.

Setting

The setting and genre are created collaboratively by the two players before the game begins, and suggestions from the book are everything from modern

romantic comedies Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

to Romeo and Juliet. The characters are also created collaboratively, with the possibility to give suggestions for the other character's traits. An important part of character creation is the switch, where the players give their character an attribute from the other player. The switch could be gender, if the players are a man and a woman, an occupation if the players are working with different things in real life, or something else.

Game system

''Breaking the Ice'' is a two-player role playing game in which the players collaboratively describe the story of a romance between their characters. The game uses pools of six-sided dice to determine the outcome of situations. During dates one player is the active player and the other is the guide. The active player describes what happens during the date, and the guide can award bonus dice if the active player makes their character seem attractive or describes something true to life. After each scene the players roll the collected dice to see if their characters are attracted to each other, and then switch roles of active player and guide. If the active player describes something that puts their character at disadvantage, the guide can grant them re-roll dice. After three dates the players get to decide, in part based on their characters' mutual attraction score, if the characters will stay together.

Publication history

The game was released in the summer of 2005 by

through the solely owned Black & Green Games.

Reception

''Breaking the Ice'' was a runner-up for Indie Game of the Year, Most Innovative Game of the Year, and Best Support, at the 2005

Indie RPG Awards The Indie RPG Awards are annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski, and are the most sought-after awards in the ''Indie RPG'' community. For the purposes of the Award ...

Reviews

*''

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

'' * '' Casus Belli'' (v4, Issue 12 - Nov/Dec 2014)

References

{{reflist

External links

Official homepage
for Breaking the Ice.
Discussion forum at the Forge
Indie role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2005